Good Short-Form Adventure Systems?

[Afgncaap5]

Do you know of any good short-form game systems? Most of the games I play seem to focus on longer, epic plots that might fit into three or four books, but I'm curious about scaling it down to something more fitting for the kinds of adventures you might see in short stories or just single books. The Princess Bride, for instance, wouldn't really be a long-lasting campaign, I think; even if you worked with everything in the book (backstory elements excluded, of course) you'd probably be able to finish in just a month or two if you only met once a week.

So far the only game I've found that really seems to gear itself toward that sort of brevity is Cosmic Patrol. And Cosmic Patrol's great... for my gamer friends who like science fiction. If I want fantasy (or even near-fantasy swashbuckler adventures like Princess Bride or Zorro or Robin Hood) then I don't really have many options. I suppose I could try to reskin Cosmic Patrol, but I played my hand too soon and the fantasy enthusiasts are on to my sneaky attempts to work Cosmic Patrol into things. So... something similarly geared for shorter stories would be awesome. Any ideas?

[Koo Rehtorb]

Apocalypse World, and to a lesser extent, Dungeon World, are geared for a short arc of about 8-12 sessions.

[Psikerlord]

Low Fantasy Gaming RPG is built for short episodic adventures.

[Fri]

Dread, the system that uses Jenga tower is for one shot horror game.

Fiasco is GM-less system for playing one shot game about small time capers that go horribly wrong.

Chris Perrin's Mecha is a mecha system built around episodic games, where each session can be treated as an episode in a mecha series.

[perpterds]

if i recall aright, the fate system is decent for any length (been a while since i fated)

[Thrudd]

You can do that with any system. Just plan short, episodic adventures.

There are some systems that are intended to be mainly one-shots or episodic, but I can't think of any that require really long, epic adventures. It's just a matter of preference for the GM.

Feng Shui lends itself to episodic format, the new edition of the game even blatantly says so: each session is meant to be like a complete movie or tv episode.

If you want fantasy, there are a hundred different games you can try, some of them are free. All of them can be run in an episodic, drop-in format.

If you're implying D&D can't do that, you're wrong. That is how many people run it, now and in the past. There is nothing preventing you from planning shorter adventures. Ever hear of tournament play? Many of it's earliest adventures were intended to be played through in one session, at game conventions.

[Afgncaap5]

Dread, the system that uses Jenga tower is for one shot horror game.

Fiasco is GM-less system for playing one shot game about small time capers that go horribly wrong.

Chris Perrin's Mecha is a mecha system built around episodic games, where each session can be treated as an episode in a mecha series.

Ah! Yes, I'd forgotten Fiasco. That's almost the perfect example of the kind of thing I'm looking for, even though I'm often not going for a Cohen Bros. style thing. And Dread looked amazing at Gen-Con a few years back, I need to try it. I'll keep an eye out for Mecha; not a huge mecha series fan, but I could see myself enjoying it more as a player than as a viewer.


If you're implying D&D can't do that, you're wrong. That is how many people run it, now and in the past. There is nothing preventing you from planning shorter adventures. Ever hear of tournament play? Many of it's earliest adventures were intended to be played through in one session, at game conventions.

I'm not implying that. D&D is a great game system but it's also generalized so that it tends to be geared toward acceptable games whether you're going for a single session or a multi-year campaign. It's harder to just pick up and wrap up in a night, like the above-mentioned Fiasco. (And to your point, the best single-night game I'd ever played was in a 5e game. There was no combat, the DM invented lots of story-specific magic to make the plot work, and we had to treat one player as an NPC, but it was nice.)

[Thrudd]

Ah! Yes, I'd forgotten Fiasco. That's almost the perfect example of the kind of thing I'm looking for, even though I'm often not going for a Cohen Bros. style thing. And Dread looked amazing at Gen-Con a few years back, I need to try it. I'll keep an eye out for Mecha; not a huge mecha series fan, but I could see myself enjoying it more as a player than as a viewer.



I'm not implying that. D&D is a great game system but it's also generalized so that it tends to be geared toward acceptable games whether you're going for a single session or a multi-year campaign. It's harder to just pick up and wrap up in a night, like the above-mentioned Fiasco. (And to your point, the best single-night game I'd ever played was in a 5e game. There was no combat, the DM invented lots of story-specific magic to make the plot work, and we had to treat one player as an NPC, but it was nice.)

Not sure what you mean by "geared toward acceptable games". I you design a D&D campaign to be episodic, with adventures that last a few sessions each, isn't that exactly what you asked for? If you want a certain feel, restrict the class choices to those that fit your theme - if you want to run a one-shot pickup game, make some pregenerated characters appropriate for the adventure and let the players pick which roles they want to play. It isn't hard to wrap it up in a night, if you've designed a short adventure that can be played in one night. Same goes for any system, not just D&D.

You said you wanted fantasy that could run episodic adventures which last anywhere from 4-8 sessions (a month or two).
Almost any game system can do that, it's a pretty common format. Even single-session adventures aren't a stretch for most games, that's how they get demoed at conventions.

If you want specifically a swashbuckling pirate-style fantasy setting, try "7th Sea".

GURPS can do literally anything, and I'm pretty sure there must be a swashbuckling pirate-theme supplement for it, in addition to the normal fantasy supplement.

The D6 system also can be played quite cinematically and D6 Adventure and D6 Fantasy will both have options good for swashbuckling-style characters.

[Fri]

Yes, but there are systems who are specifically built for that, and he's looking for it. It's as simple as that.

[Afgncaap5]

Yes, but there are systems who are specifically built for that, and he's looking for it. It's as simple as that.

Yeah, pretty much this. For instance, take the game Cosmic Patrol. It's designed so that its missions are broken into scenes, and each scene is a sci-fi challenge that can be completed in a relatively short amount of time if the GM and the players are being Flash Gordony enough. Using the classic rules, the control of the game even rotates between GMs (or "Lead Narrators") with every scene, letting their character fade into the background for a scene while everyone else steps up to play. It's not unheard of to finish two or three missions a night with four or six scenes wrapping up.

Or to paraphrase a friend of mine after the first time he finished being a Lead Narrator, "a cavern filled with mind-controlling brain slugs in 3.5 might be an epic level challenge that'd last the night. I'm kind of glad you guys were able to blast through that in fifteen minutes the way this is built, though."

Theoretically, 3.5 or other versions of D&D don't need to have an entire evening devoted to lunar brain slugs either. However, the game suggests that there should be multiple initiatives for the slugs as well, and slugs should probably have approximated health and stats, and people are encouraged to move through initiative order in situations like that. There's certainly nothing preventing a D&D game from setting aside the regular conventions and playing Lunar Brain Slugs in a Cosmic Patrol style, it's just not what the system encourages. Cosmic Patrol, meanwhile, definitely encourages that kind of play and tends to discourage D&D-style combat (one of my first mistakes in Cosmic Patrol was treating the combat like D&D. It was so slow and dragged out since weapons do so little damage; I didn't yet understand the importance of plot twists and environmental surprises in the game back then.)

[Noje]

It sounds to me you are looking for a system that:

1) Isn't heavily focused on mechanical character progression (i.e. leveling systems)
2) Has relatively fast character creation
3) Has streamlined combat so more time can be spent on progressing the story

would that be correct?

[Afgncaap5]

It sounds to me you are looking for a system that:

1) Isn't heavily focused on mechanical character progression (i.e. leveling systems)
2) Has relatively fast character creation
3) Has streamlined combat so more time can be spent on progressing the story

would that be correct?

That's a good starting point, yeah. I mean, I can conceive of systems that might bend one or two or those and still be viable, but I'd definitely look at any of those things pretty well. Fiasco works really well for all three of those, but another favorite of mine (Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine) wouldn't since its character creation aspect is a little tricky for new players to wrap their heads around at first.

[Noje]

That's a good starting point, yeah. I mean, I can conceive of systems that might bend one or two or those and still be viable, but I'd definitely look at any of those things pretty well. Fiasco works really well for all three of those, but another favorite of mine (Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine) wouldn't since its character creation aspect is a little tricky for new players to wrap their heads around at first.

You can solve the problem of long and complicated character creation by using pre-generated characters in your campaign. Especially if you're trying to run campaigns that emulate stories like Princess Bride. That is, of course, if you're into that kind of thing. Some people are very against the idea of pre-generated characters and are angered by the mere suggestion.

[Afgncaap5]

You can solve the problem of long and complicated character creation by using pre-generated characters in your campaign. Especially if you're trying to run campaigns that emulate stories like Princess Bride. That is, of course, if you're into that kind of thing. Some people are very against the idea of pre-generated characters and are angered by the mere suggestion.

We tend to do that in Cosmic Patrol, honestly. While there are plenty of rules for making our own characters, we've really started to prefer just using the pregens for it.

[Aran nu tasar]

I'm currently running a series of one-shots using various systems. Some that I'd recommend:

Havoc Brigade (https://gshowitt.itch.io/havoc-brigade), a game about a rabble of orcs infiltrating a human city to kidnap its prince. Not a serious game in the slightest, it is nonstop slapstick action. The game I ran involved goblins riding rampaging owlbears; that's pretty representative of the game's tone.

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, we have Ten Candles (http://cavalrygames.com/ten-candles/), an extremely atmospheric tragic horror game. It's played in complete darkness lit only by a circle of ten candles, and as the game goes on the candles are darkened one by one. When the last candle is darkened, the characters are all dead.

Somewhere in the middle is Lady Blackbird (http://www.onesevendesign.com/ladyblackbird/), a short game about a steampunk smuggler ship. It's pretty simple, requires no prep, and encourages roleplaying and strong characterization.

These are all designed to be played in a single sitting, although Lady Blackbird can go for longer.

[Knaight]

Chronica Feudalis has fast character generation, easily picked up mechanics, and a rules structure that puts enough mechanical focus on important game things to be worth using in lieu of a truly minimalist system without slowing the game. It's an option. Prime Time Adventures deliberately structures itself after TV serials, which also gives you the sort of scene structure that you seem to like in Cosmic Patrol. Diana: Warrior Princess is a ludicrously gonzo game that mostly works because of its unique setting, but it's fast and it's worth reading (mostly because of said setting). If you want something a bit more traditional Warrior, Rogue, and Mage fits the same general niche as D&D in most respects, while drastically speeding up character generation and cutting down on mechanics. Most of the rest of these have narrative mechanics in some way, and while I suspect that's fine (because of Cosmic Patrol) it's worth tossing in.

Then there's Microscope. Microscope is the single most brilliant RPG I have ever seen. It's also way on the borders of RPGs, and it doesn't fit the short campaign structure; it's well suited to games of only a few sessions but nothing that comes out of it can really be called a campaign. I'd give it a shot at least once, but it's not a replacement for more conventional RPGs.

[Airk]

There are... LOTS of these, actually. Like, LOTS AND LOTS. It approaches being a tenet of Forge-style RPG design that people are busy and don't have time to devote three years to a campaign if they can get the same amount of character development and fun out of three sessions. Here are a few ideas:

Apocalypse World - The post-apocalyptic sci-fi game that spawned a million hacks - anything that bills itself as "Powered by the Apocalypse" is using the chassis from this game in some way. Recently received a second edition. Streamlined character generation by way of playbooks, relatively brisk advancement, no particular slowdown for combat.

Dungeon World - D&D by way of "Powered by the Apocalypse"; Probably not as good a game as AW, but a much more popular genre. Bits of it will feel familiar to D&D players. Has many of the same advantages as AW, but in a Generic D&D Fantasy setting.

Monster of the Week - Another PbtA game, this time centered around Buffy/Supernatural style modern day monster hunting. Very well suited to episodic play in general.

Beyond The Wall & Other Adventures - this is a weird one, and I feel obliged to say that I don't entirely LIKE it, but it's got a very interesting character generation system where while you are creating characters, you are also creating ties between them and building you village. It also has a large number of free "adventures" (I use quotes because they don't call them that, and because the framework is designed to accomodate the stuff you made up in chargen). It's basically an OSR Game (It uses more or less the same mechanics as early D&D) so it's not too complicated.

The Mountain Witch - A game of Samurai assaulting the fortress of... The Mountain Witch. Relatively early indie RPG, but still a goodie. Lots of stuff grew out of this one. Designed to wrap up in 2-3 sessions, if I remember right.

Fate Accelerated - A lightweight version of Fate; Straightforward chargen, interesting approach to "stats" (You have "approaches" which are about HOW you do something rather than WHAT your are doing.) and very little in the way of "advancement" make this game a good choice for short games in its style - Fate games are basically about highly competent characters getting into trouble because of their flaws but generally coming out on top.

Fullmetal President: White House Mecha Chaos - The vice president has staged a coup, and democracy is in peril. Only the president, his cabinet, and their MECHA SUITS can save the day. Quick and easy and designed strictly for one shot play, though does contain ideas for followup scenarios such as Fullmetal President vs Zombie Cyborg Teddie Roosevelt.

InSpectres - Another older indie RPG; Basically, Ghostbusters meets The Office. Chargen and franchise creation take about 10 minutes, and while there is advancement of a sort in the form of growing your franchise and accumulating Cool dice, mechanically it's super light. Also fairly collaborative, in that when the characters succeed at something, they say what transpires, which can make for a pretty entertaining mystery investigation. ;)

Mythender - A game about killing a god. Absolutely designed for one shot play. No "advancement" beyond the power you gather along the way. Will spend a lot of time in combat, but that's sortof the point.

Lasers & Feelings - Star Trek with the serial numbers filed off. Chargen takes like, a minute (You are picking one number between 2 and 5, one noun from a list and one adjective from a list), plus how long it takes for you to think of a cool name. Comes with its own scenario generator. Super awesome for one shots. No advancement at all.

The Warren - Watership Down Powered by the Apocalypse. Pretty much enough said.

Circle of Hands - a "Mud and Blood" fantasy game with a nifty setting (Iron Age sort of thing) and magic system. Clever system, very much designed for episodic play, with very smart GM tools and a surprisingly good explanation of WHY things are done the way they are in the game.

Tenra Bansho Zero - Imported from Japan and translated by one crazy man, a game of "hyper asian fantasy" with all kinds of gonzo anime archetypes and an absolutely awesome reward system. Chargen can run slightly long with unfamiliar players, but use of templates alleviates this a bit. Intended for "long session" play - to the tune of 6-8 hours total play time, which obviously for most folks will be split over 2-3 sessions.

I think that covers a few different options from around the map.

Edit: Oh yeah, and this doesn't even include the various GMless games like The Quiet Year, Microscope, Kingdom, and Fall of Magic, all of which are AWESOME.

[Aran nu tasar]

I would point out that Apocalypse World in particular, and probably some of the other PBtA games (I haven't read through any, unfortunately) are built for a longer campaign. I believe Baker straight-out says that the game really gets going at around the sixth session, and the first session is designed to be slow-paced learning about the characters before things get moving. Doesn't mean AW and its derivatives won't make good one-shots, but it might, depending on the system, take a bit of effort.